Jack Thompson spreads word on ayatollahs seizing Iranian film industry
Defiant Iranian actors and moviemakers have blown the whistle on a push by the ayatollahs to take over the country’s film industry, appealing to colleagues in Australia to spread the word.
Defiant Iranian actors and moviemakers have blown the whistle on a push by the ayatollahs to take over the country’s celebrated film industry, appealing to colleagues in Australia to spread the word that much of the latest output is “propaganda”.
Asia Pacific Screen Academy president Jack Thompson said the Iranians’ warning that international cinema awards and festivals could be duped had to be taken seriously.
From Tehran, an internationally-recognised filmmaker detailed how state operatives had seized control of production “from the ground up” during the crackdown on anti-government protests that have gripped the country for five months.
At the same time, one of Iran’s best known actors told of her despair at the arrests of stars who had joined the demonstrators or offered them public support.
“It breaks my heart,” she said, asking not to be named for her safety. Both the actor and the filmmaker are members of the Australia-based screen Academy.
Thompson, who knows the prominent actor, said it was incumbent on the film industry here and worldwide to speak out against the persecution in Iran.
“We have got to express, as I am now, our support for their struggle to remain free to express what they believe,” the 82-year-old screen legend said. “They’re … regarded throughout the world as being fabulous filmmakers and what’s going on is terrible.”
The Iranian filmmaker, also speaking via an encrypted VPN link on condition of anonymity, told The Australian that representatives of the repressive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were routinely in charge of movie shoots.
While filmmakers in Iran were always subject to state control, all artistic freedom had been stripped away since the streets erupted last September over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22. She had been picked up in Tehran by the so-called morality police for failing to secure her hijab.
“They are controlling everything from the roots,” the filmmaker said of the takeover. “Now they’re producing and exporting this propaganda and my question to you, to filmmakers and journalists around the world, is how do you identify which film is being produced and supported by the government and which one is not?
“What is coming out of Iran is not necessarily coming from independent filmmakers.”
ASPA founding chair Des Power said addressing the issue was a “test of our integrity” and would top the agenda of the academy’s first board meeting of 2023 in February.
“In Iran today, honest, truthful films can’t be made,” the veteran producer said. “Festivals and awards-based film events like ASPA will need to guard against films from Iran because it’s highly likely they will conform to the regime’s edicts and are, therefore, no more than propaganda.”
Asked how this could be achieved, Power said: “The only way we’re going to know is through the network of filmmakers that we’ve got around the world and in Iran. We’ve got to tap into our contacts for their feedback. The word will get out if a film is on the nose.”
Iranian films are the third most decorated by the ASPA since its inception in 2007, behind China and India. The country’s top actors and directors are also regulars on the red carpet at the Oscars and Cannes Film Festival.
Power said pressure from the industry had achieved results in the past, with a campaign led by French star Juliette Binoche in 2010 key to the release of imprisoned Iranian filmmaker and ASPA member Jafar Panahi. He was rearrested last July and returned to jail on a pre-existing sentence.
The filmmaker interviewed by The Australian said a friend, a promising young director, had committed suicide rather than face the Sepah, the IRGC’s internal security arm. Hundreds of film industry figures have been detained including Academy Award-winning actor Taraneh Alidoosti, freed earlier this month in the face of international outcry.
In Sweden, exiled documentary-maker Maryam Ebrahimi counted the colleagues who had been arrested or jailed: fellow filmmakers Mina Keshavarz and Firouzeh Khosravani, well-known photographer Aliyeh Motalebzadeh, her own cinematographer Vahid Zarezadeh who had escaped to Turkey.
“Unfortunately, many festivals, film forums and cultural platforms still select films or invite people who are working for the regime’s propaganda,” Ebrahimi said. “We need to get more knowledge and background.”
Thompson, however, insisted it would be wrong for ASPA and other film events to ban Iranian participation. “You can’t simply deny a film’s worth because it tells stories that are not true,” he said.
“All sorts of important films have been made by propagandists – Battleship Potemkin (1925) and the extraordinary Riefenstahl documentaries of the (1936) Berlin Olympics – and we’re on slippery ground when we talk about the quality of a film as a piece of cinema not being worthy because it is propaganda.”
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